Validation of a physiological ex vivo platform to rapidly test novel immunotherapy combinations in
patient tumours.

Project Summary

There has been a recent discovery of a metabolic phenotype present in the tumours of melanoma patients who are resistant to standard-of-care immunotherapies. The lack of metabolic and immune fidelity in current melanoma models has made translating this discovery difficult. CI-Holst works with the lab of CoI-Faridani who developed the EViCT Platform, enabling the use of patient material to undertake Ex Vivo Clinical Trials of therapeutics. CI-Wilmott works with the melanoma clinical team (CoI-Long/Scolyer/Menzies/Silva) who have access to clinical samples from primary and treatment resistant patients and are world leaders in immunotherapies. This project will further develop the EViCT Platform to determine the best ex vivo conditions that maintain melanoma cells and immune infiltrates. This will generate the necessary preliminary data testing immunotherapy treatments and novel combinations to enable EViCT to be a platform for precision medicine in clinical trials.